“If you’re not local, you may not get why this is shocking. The College Ave location may be the single most prime property in all of Upstate NY. Over 15,000 pedestrians cross it every day. There’s no way it isn’t profitable. This looks like union busting,” was posted, as #ShameOnStarbucks was trending on Saturday evening.
If you're not local, you may not get why this is shocking.
The College Ave location may be the single most prime property in all of Upstate NY.
Over 15,000 pedestrians cross it every day. There's no way it isn't profitable. This looks like union busting #ShameOnStarbucks https://t.co/5OvQJEd9Or
— Svante Myrick (@SvanteMyrick) June 4, 2022
Here is a story that illustrates the concept of permanent revolution class– no matter what you give some people- or create for them, they want a will quickly want a revolution from what they said they used to want.
Some Starbucks employees are crying, War! over the closing a newly unionized Starbucks, where workers are not happy to be given perks and over $15 hours, they want more. Or perhaps they really just love the idea of having something to fight about.
Scoop: Starbucks is closing an Ithaca cafe where workers recently unionized and went on strike. Company cites facilities, staffing, and "time and attendance" issues. Union filed retaliation claim with labor board and seeks injunction https://t.co/3dYgNJFwIm "Blatant act of war” https://t.co/JFDzfmMtX2
— Josh Eidelson (@josheidelson) June 4, 2022
Consider how the lefty Baristas of Starbucks are having a revolution and forming Unions- they are forcing at least one business site to close- for their newest utopian dreams of being revolutionaries.
And this is why Americans should roundly reject the left and all of their many revolutions- and never give them any power. Because America is about stability not the chaos of ever-changing rights and responsibilities- and nonsense revolutions.
“Permanent revolution is the strategy of a revolutionary class pursuing its own interests independently and without compromise or alliance with opposing sections of society. As a term within Marxist theory, it was first coined by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as early as 1850, but since then it has been used to refer to different concepts by different theorists, most notably Leon Trotsky,” the Wiki page says.
Typically, revolutions take the form of organized movements aimed at effecting change—economic change, technological change, political change, or social change. The people who start revolutions have determined the institutions currently in place in society have failed or no longer serve their intended purpose.
So now- leftist baristas are revolting against woke Starbucks- and unionizing- as the company is almost begging them to stop.
Considering the following article from Bloomberg, it is interesting to note that the business media group still hasn’t figured how much they love the permanent revolution class- who cost businesses trillions of dollars of loss – to their bottom lines, or how much respect to give to the concept of free-market capitalism- which built America in the first place.
New: My @BW cover story on how and why the the Starbucks union movement has spread with such stunning speed and scope, and what comes next https://t.co/ulLTjwEwSe Reported from Buffalo, Boston, NYC, Virginia, Knoxville, Memphis, Mesa, Santa Cruz, and Seattle
— Josh Eidelson (@josheidelson) May 12, 2022
Author Josh Eildeson is a labor writer- which means he sides with the revolutionaries.
“Until December, none of Starbucks’ roughly 9,000 corporate-run US coffee shops were unionized—owing in part to the company’s aggressive resistance to organizing, but also to the relatively strong pay and benefits that give Schultz so much pride. (By August, all US employees will be guaranteed a minimum wage of $15 an hour.) Now workers at more than 60 locations in 17 states have voted to join Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, following the lead and advice of first-mover baristas in Buffalo. Employees at about 175 more Starbucks have petitioned the federal government for votes of their own,” Eildeson reported.
Front his article:
Although this hardly represents the majority of the company’s stores, and none of the workers have negotiated a contract yet, the steady drip has transformed the idea of winning a union vote at a Starbucks from seemingly impossible to almost inevitable. As of May 10, only eight stores have called an election and then voted to reject the union. Successful votes have taken place from coast to coast, including in deep-red states as well as at a flagship megacafe in Seattle. Employees attempting to organize at Amazon, Apple, Verizon, and elsewhere cite these successes as an inspiration. “We’re going to spread just like the Starbucks movement,” Christian Smalls, a fired Amazon.com Inc. worker who led the successful union vote at his old workplace in New York City, said on CNBC the same day as Schultz’s speech in April. The baristas’ rebellion is acting as a beacon for workers and a warning for executives: If it can happen at the Starbucks on the corner, it can happen anywhere.
As with Smalls at Amazon, the Starbucks organizers have succeeded mainly by mentoring one another. “It’s the ultimate group project,” says Michelle Eisen, a Starbucks barista in Buffalo who’s coached baristas at other stores from Kentucky to Hawaii. “Everybody has to pull their weight.” Baristas from Boston, Buffalo, and Seattle have trained more than 80 co-workers across the US on how to mentor colleagues at other stores. Richard Bensinger, a Workers United organizer, is helping to steer the campaign at the national level but says he generally keeps his mouth shut in those trainings, if he’s even there. “They don’t need to hear from me,” he says.
Why Starbucks? Dozens of baristas across eight states say the reality of the green apron falls short of the picture Schultz paints, and short of US workers’ rising expectations. Fifteen dollars an hour is decent money in some parts of the country, but it’s still less than half what it costs to support one adult and one child in a city such as Seattle, according to the MIT Living Wage Calculator. Even before the pandemic, Starbucks stores were understaffed. Covid-19 exacerbated that and added major health risks, as corporate failed to account for staff shortages, provide employees with high-quality masks, or reinstitute its mask mandate once a new variant came along. The newly unionized employees are demanding stronger job protections, deeper staffing, and higher pay that also accounts for inflation. If staffing issues mean one of them has to do double the work for a shift, they say, that person should get paid double, too.
“Workers United is a business,” he said. “This business is not a cause, a movement.” The company has said repeatedly that it complies with labor laws and has strenuously denied allegations that it’s attempting to squelch the union illegally by targeting activists or threatening retribution. It did, however, create a website telling workers that under a union contract “some things you value now might go away.”
And yet- the revolution goes on, because the permanent revolution class has been coddled for far too long in the United States- and as families, taxpayers and workers are struggling to pay for gas to drive back and forth from their grown activities- it is the perfect time for Starbucks to tell works to grow up. The word Utopia in the dictionary between Unicorn and- Go get a job!
Kari is an ex-Community Organizer who writes about Cultural Marxism, grassroots activism, music, IndyCar racing and political campaigns. @Saorsa1776
Starbucks loves to virtue signal about how Left they are. Being held hostage by Communist unions is part of the package! It’s like Frankenstein’s monster killing the good doctor.